Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Jim Allister on the motion of Censure against Barroso

Alongside with Bairbre de Brun and Mary Lou MacDonald, Jim Allister signed the motion of censure against Barroso proposed by the UKIP Nigel Farage. Speaking in advance of the debate on the motion on Barroso at a press conference with other sponsors in Brussels, Jim Allister said: "Just like Caesar's wife President Barrosa and all Commissioners must be seen to be above reproach.The diffidence until now to declare private gifts, which only breeds suspicion, must be replaced with clear and emphatic information and the putting in place of a proper system of transparent accountability. Hopefully today's debate will produce commitments to bring transparency to how Commissioners behave in their public office. If it does it will be thanks to the compulsion of this Motion rather than the sycophantic, grovelling speeches of the leaders of the main groups in this House, which we will doubtless hear this afternoon. I welcome the fact there are sufficient people in this Parliament prepared to stand up and be counted in demanding basic and transparent accountability."

The motion has very little chance to be approved as on 13 May, a joint statement was issued by the four largest groups in the European Parliament on the motion of censure: Hans-Gert POETTERING (EPP-ED, DE), Martin SCHULZ (PES, DE), Graham WATSON (ALDE, UK), Daniel COHN-BENDIT (Greens/EFA, DE) and Monica FRASSONI (Greens/EFA, IT)."As chairs of our political groups, which account for 597 of the 732 members of the European Parliament, we express our opposition to the motion of censure tabled yesterday in Strasbourg. "We consider this initiative to be unjustified and disproportionate and principally designed to seek publicity for its authors."